CHAPTER 3 #2
Thankfully, Bee does not require company while she showers.
But then there are face masks, body lotions, body bronzing, hair drying, hair styling, layers of makeup and at least five outfit changes.
Look, I’m not claiming to be low maintenance.
Frankly it’s a concept used to shame women for enjoying nice things, and fuck that.
If roughly sixty per cent of my pay didn’t go to rent, I might, in fact, be slightly more costly to maintain.
But this feels a little like preparing for a wedding rather than a random Saturday night.
It is five hours of my life I’m not getting back.
On the other hand, if I consider the rent advance payment in kind for time and labour in my capacity as chaperone, it makes me feel better about the whole thing.
Not that Bee would ever make me feel bad about it.
Also, my skin has never felt this damn smooth.
He rings the doorbell at five past seven and I peek around the wall to see what kind of greeting is deemed appropriate for the situation.
He goes for a cheek kiss (with lips, not cheek to cheek) into a hug.
She brings his jacket out from where she held it behind her back and presents it bashfully.
He grins and takes it like it’s a priceless artifact.
‘Come on, Gertrude!’ Bee yells. I pop out from behind the wall and allow Bee to introduce me.
‘Hi, Will! Nice to meet you!’ I opt for a handshake. Seems chaperone-y.
He doesn’t reach out to take it. ‘William,’ he says, deadly serious.
‘Not Will. William. Never Will.’ I slowly lower my empty hand back to my side.
He doesn’t let the moment pass. Bee is looking at me very seriously as well.
He just lets us all sit in it. I have to break the silence with my bubbliest voice.
I can’t ruin this for Bee before we’ve even left the house.
‘William! Sorry about that, William. It’s William. Got it. Shall we go?’ I powerwalk out of there ahead of them and towards a car idling outside. There is a man in the driver’s seat, with his arm resting on the open window.
Him.
Never having been on one myself, I have often wondered about the standard cliché dinner-and-a-movie date.
Is it better to do the dinner or the movie first?
Movie-first allows for a topic of conversation to fill the silence at dinner, but I feel like meeting someone and then immediately sitting quietly in the dark with them for several hours would be somewhat unsettling.
In short, I wonder whether it’s a good idea for a first date at all.
I can now, however, readily name something that is more awkward than going on a dinner-and-a-movie first date…and it is chaperoning a dinner-and-a-movie first date. Doing so with the guy I squabbled with in the middle of an event the week before is just extra bonus awkward I hadn’t accounted for.
It probably should have occurred to me before now that this guy might be my counterpart for the evening.
But presumably William (never Will) has more than one friend.
For all I knew, this guy was the only one free on short notice to attend last week’s footy event with William, and there are much cooler, nicer friends to be paired with. Sadly, no.
‘You,’ he says with a shit-eating grin. I don’t dignify him with a response. Instead I dignify him by making a stupid face and getting in the front seat. Together we watch in silence as Bee and William wander down the stairs hand in hand, staring at each other.
‘Jesus, hope they don’t go ass over tit,’ he mutters, and I turn my laugh into a throat-clear. It isn’t enough to drown out the anxious voice in my mind scream-reminding me of our last meeting, but it turns the volume down a fraction.
William opens the door for Bee, and I swear she curtsies before getting in.
‘Hi,’ Bee says to the friend. ‘I’m Bianca.
’ She doesn’t react to my raised eyebrows at the full name use.
I thought ‘Bee’ was supposed to be young, fresh and fun in a way that ‘Gertrude’ isn’t.
She holds out her hand to shake his. ‘Lovely to meet you.’
‘I’m Arthur,’ he says, returning the handshake. Arthur. It matches him completely, like he simultaneously gives off old-man and cartoon-aardvark energy. I hate myself for liking his name.
I am now even more determined to be sour (but politely).
We ride in silence while I eavesdrop on the conversation in the back seat.
He likes her outfit. She likes his. Her work week was fine.
His was really busy (end of month). She is excited for the restaurant.
He is excited to see the movie. Their hands are touching on the middle seat between them.
I bite back a laugh at the generic Hinge-conversation-brought-to-life, but then I clock that Arthur has seen me, so I turn to look out the window.
William looks down at the jacket on his lap. ‘I’m so glad you found me. I could have kicked myself when I realised I had lost my favourite jacket and my shot with you.’
Bee blushes and lowers her gaze, looking back up at him through her eyelashes.
‘It’s amazing what a woman can do with the right incentive.
I had your name and where you worked, from there it was an easy leap to find your LinkedIn and then your Instagram.
I just knew I had to find you.’ Interesting retelling.
Arthur lets out a low whistle. William looks thoroughly impressed and thoroughly besotted. And the conversation moves on.
We are going movie-first, and William and Bianca wander off towards the candy bar without looking back at their chaperones. For the first time, I turn to look at Arthur.
‘Are we going to get tickets?’
‘I’ve already got them on my phone.’ He brandishes it as proof. ‘Just ours, William has theirs. We’re exactly five rows back and seven seats to the left of them.’ He points at the growing line at the bar. ‘Do you want a glass of wine?’
Although short, this is our first conversation without snapping since we’ve known each other. Which is cumulatively about forty-five minutes, but still. I decide to match his energy and put aside the sour for a moment. And get a free glass of wine. ‘That would be nice, thank you.’
‘White or red?’ he asks, then we wait in the line in silence while I resist the urge to stare at my phone.
He buys himself a beer and me a pinot grigio in the blockbuster size.
I think that says a lot about a man, so he rises slightly in my esteem.
I try not to stare at the forearms exposed by his rolled-up woollen jumper.
Certainly not at the way his muscles move as he picks up the drinks off the bar or…
No. I’m not going to actually enjoy him.
That would be impossible, because he’s an asshole.
In our seats, I open my bag and pull out a bag of popcorn, a packet of Maltesers and a bag of snakes. He looks on with what seems to be a mixture of horror and awe. Bag goes to the floor and I gesture magnanimously to the feast in my lap. ‘Would you like to share my snacks?’
‘Aren’t we going to dinner after?’
I look at him. ‘Yeah. So?’
He shrugs, and grabs the snakes.
‘Interesting choice.’
He tells me to shush during the trailers, and I catch him taking down titles in his Notes app when he sees a movie he’s interested in.
Weird. I think it might cancel out the wine thing.
I am totally paying attention to the generic action movie with that one hot guy in the lead role, but I also notice how Arthur alternates between the snakes, Maltesers and popcorn, in order, before taking a measured sip of his beer.
How he definitively stops all snacking halfway through the film, then finishes his beer and sits with his hands in his lap.
From five rows behind I can see that William and Bianca have the popcorn sitting between them.
When they both reach for it at the same time, their hands brush; shy smiles are illuminated by the explosions on the screen, to which they are entirely oblivious.
He gestures for her to go first. She does, and then rests her head on his shoulder.
Dinner is at an Italian place near the cinema. Arthur and I are seated by the door to the toilets.
‘Do you think they specifically selected this awful table?’ Arthur asks as the door swings back and forth behind him, releasing a slight waft that makes my bowl of claggy carbonara even more wholly unappetising. ‘Did they call ahead or something?’
I consider the couple in question, who are leaning so far across the table I half expect them to start slurping the same piece of pasta. Bee always did have a thing for Lady and the Tramp. But I know for a fact that Bee has chosen the risotto quattro formaggi (low splash-risk; no garlic breath).
‘Honestly,’ I say, ‘I’ve been wondering if this whole evening is just a practical joke on us.’
‘Because why do two fully grown adults need chaperones on a first date?’ he asks.
‘Exactly! It’s completely bizarre, right? Did William give you a reason?’
‘He did not. And I’ve tried so hard to figure it out!’
‘Was he trying to set us up? If it had been Bee’s idea, I would definitely assume it was a setup—she loves to play matchmaker. My last three boyfriends were friends of her boyfriends.’
He makes a face. ‘Seriously? Did she make you break up with them when her relationships ended?’
‘No!’ Then I think for a moment. ‘I mean, the relationships all ended around the same time, but coincidentally. One of the guys cheated on me.’ That isn’t a flex.
Thankfully, he ignores it. But he smirks as he says, ‘I don’t think a setup is William’s style. He’s too busy with his finance douchery.’
‘That’s good to know, because despite this tentative detente we have reached, I really look forward to never seeing you again after this evening.’
‘And I you, milady.’ He clinks his glass against mine, and we both turn back to the show. After a few more moments, he starts to speak again.
‘No, no,’ I say, waving my fork at him. ‘Let’s not waste our sparkling conversation on each other. Eat your pasta.’
So we do; and then I spend the last part of my evening cuddled up in Bee’s bed as my best friend gushes about the date, as though I wasn’t also there, and the goodnight kiss William gave her at the door. Just a modest peck. Which I definitely was not spying on from behind the front curtain.